The Soul Felt Its Worth

I kept staring at her, the woman whose eyes were childlike with wonder, whose face shone with health and life and peace. She, along with the others at her table, was dressed in her finest. They all no doubt felt that the night was like something from a dream, but she was especially radiant.

The occasion was a renewal of wedding vows ceremony for their pastor and his wife. The church fellowship hall had been transformed by the decorations, the party clothes, live saxophone music, and the seated dinner served by teenagers in white shirts and black pants and ties. The tables were elegant, each place-setting a statement, “This is just for you, my friend. You were invited to share in our joy.”

“Who is that?” I whispered to my friend. “She looks familiar…could it be Shawn?”

“No way,” said she.

Finally, after looking at her so much she began to notice, I went to her table, approached a woman I knew, asking her to introduce the rest of her table to me.

“You know my husband, and this is my sister Shawn.”

“It is you! I can’t believe it!” I cried. “You’re so beautiful!” My words were uncensored, my response heartfelt and spontaneous. I touched her shoulder; she was real.

She smiled a self-conscious, but happy smile; her eyes teared up as she looked straight into my eyes and said, “I’m saved.”
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Once, when I pulled into the parking lot of the housing project to pick up her son to take him to anger-management counseling, she walked up. She was gaunt, with matted hair, dusty-dry skin, and lifeless eyes. She had a deep scar across her forehead, proof of some violence. Her voice was so slurred I couldn’t understand her, but surmised she was asking for money. I introduced myself, explaining my purpose there. She muttered and shuffled off.

Twenty years as an addict and a gunshot wound to the head had left her not much more than a mixed-up tangle of raw nerves and needs. Having tutored five of her eight children, some of whom were born on crack, I had no sympathy for her. I did not even see her as a person. It seemed the boys did better when she was gone; custody of the children had been taken away from her long ago.
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Later that evening, I asked another church member about her. Three months ago, having begun a drug treatment program, she said she needed to come back to church. That God had been dealing with her. “She’s doing great. When I come to pick her up for church, she’s always waiting for me and literally runs to the van.”

“I’m saved,” she had said. Simple present tense, used to state a fact or condition that is true yesterday, today, tomorrow. Not, “I was saved,” or “I have been saved.” Without adornment, naked in its simplicity, vibrant in its immediacy: “I’m saved.”

She might as well have said, “I’m alive!” For that was what she was; that’s what I saw that night. A dead woman made alive, a wretched wraith become a beautiful woman, glowing with health and life and joy.

“Joy to the World, the Savior Reigns”. It’s true. I saw it with my own eyes.